Elder Scrolls Online Game Informer Details

Go to page

Go to page

Go to page

Banned

-Third person perspective
-The game uses a hotbar to activate skills like other traditional MMOs
-Visually it looks like other Hero Engine MMOs like SWTOR
-The general art style is kind of like RIFT or Everquest 2
-Fast travel exists in the game in the form of wayshrines, which are also your ressurection point, and you can teleport from one wayshrine to any other wayshrine you have already visited
-There will be no player housing
-There will be no NPC romances or marriage

I hate all of these, because these just scream of just making another fucking MMO game that's safe to ignore.

Oh, and

-NPCs will try to work together and use player like behavior when fighting you, and (at least to my understanding) have stamina as well
-They want the AI to be good, so instead of enemies in a dungeon sitting around and waiting to be pulled, you will be attacked by the entire room and they will try to react to how you are playing

You know, you think of MMOs as expanding existing worlds into something grand. The ES games are all fully realized environments to an extent that is usually reserved for MMOs to begin with. I don't know that I can think of another MMO that's tried to be less ambitious than it's source material.

I'm aware they're not necessarily related systems, but I'm bothered that they make such a claim about real time adaptive AI at the same time they admit combat will be limited to normal MMO fare because of latency.

Member

Teaser did nothing for me. This is the biggest backlash i've ever seen for a game reveal, ever. I'm so glad people aren't bending over accepting this shit and know what an Elder Scrolls MMO should be like.

Will QA for food.

Teaser did nothing for me. This is the biggest backlash i've ever seen for a game reveal, ever. I'm so glad people aren't bending over accepting this shit and know what an Elder Scrolls MMO should be like.

Member

That always seemed like it had more to do with a perceived bait and switch in terms fo the game's graphics, not on the actual merits of the game. This seems more focused no just on the look but the design, engine, and if the game is even a good idea or not. This seems worse.

My source is my ass!

The PVP in DAOC was epic, so if ESO has kept quite a bunch of the same genes, it will be interesting. We need more ambitious world pvp in MMO's. The Imperial City idea is exciting, but they MUST implement it cleverly to avoid WoW non-instanced battlegrounds multiple fiascos like Wintergrasp or Tol Barad.

Oh, and i'm SO annoyed by mmorpg's developers reluctance to add player housing, guild towns, in their games, this is a really bad and lazy trend since several years now. It was and remains a key feature of this genre for a lot players, and the expected size of the landmass + presence of big cities + the fact that solo ES (+ the tons of mods dedicated to that) already have houses (and all that comes with it) make this decision clearly disappointing.

We need a sandbox ESO with an intricate crafting system & economy, player houses & towns, a lot of community/social things + of course a huge continent to explore with tons of group quests & dungeons. A way to immerse yourself in the Elder Scrolls universe, live the daily occupations of an adventurer in such setting, with some friends.

And let the story-driven experience for offline titles.

It's the only valid policy Bethesda ! With this approach, you assure two different content, two manners of enjoying Elder Scrolls, you avoid the Blizzard situation where you take too much time releasing Warcraft 4 because you're worried about the impact on subscribers for your online world, you have more guarantees and leverage to ensure that both experiences will be awesome because they will focus on the core features that they are good at, etc, etc.

Don't milk what must be a MMORPG by adding solo-rpg elements to try to force the Skyrim-10millions-of-copies-sold thing on it. Don't postpone an offline ES because of a possible success of ESO.

Will QA for food.

That always seemed like it had more to do with a perceived bait and switch in terms fo the game's graphics, not on the actual merits of the game. This seems more focused no just on the look but the design, engine, and if the game is even a good idea or not. This seems worse.

Member

No player housing? The hell are they thinking? I consider that essential.

I'll still play it, but man do I feel disappointed. There was so much potential - to see it wasted on a WoW clone is just...man. This seems completely uninspired and not at all worthy of being called Elder Scrolls. I hope I'm wrong.

Member

Man... they really had opportunity to do something new here. Real time combat instead of hotbar bullshit, first person perspective being the primary focus instead of third... why the bloody fuck did they try to make an Elder Scrolls game more like a World of Warcraft game instead of a goddamn elder scrolls game?

Hell, God of War found a way to implement multiplayer and still remain God of War. If they could do it, Elder Scrolls should have no trouble.

I'm a huge fan of Elder Scrolls lore, having even read both novels (which weren't too bad). I used to be a huge Warcraft lore nut going back to when I played WC2 as a kid, but that all got shit on around the time of Burning Crusade came out, so I needed something else to latch on to, and I replayed Morrowind and discovered how awesome TES can be. With that in mind, I want to check this out for it's exploration of the lore, but if Warcraft becoming an mmo ruined it's lore, I fear the same for TES, and from what we know of it, the gameplay certainly won't be what keeps me interested.

I would find co-op acceptable in an Elder Scrolls game, even if it was to follow the Fable 2 route. The host is the main character whilst the 2nd player is a henchman/companion.
Skyrim has the followers and a real player could take over that role instead of it being an AI.

For the majority of Skyrim I don't think that would have been much of a problem, aside from a few scripted events I can think of.
As long as that 2nd player has their own inventory to use, that would have been sufficient for me.

Concerning the MMO, what a wasted opportunity. As most have already pointed out, they've decided to do a generic WOW clone instead of using classic Elder Scrolls gameplay in a MMO environment. They could of done some really interesting things for a MMO with the first person view option, real time combat, the classic skill system and progression etc. Disappointment.

Member

There are two (not sure if there are more) real time first person combat MMORPGs on the market now. Darkfall Online and Mortal Online. Both have their own problems. You can look at both and see what went wrong and just do a better job using the systems that were in Skyrim. They didn't have to make this a generic WoW clone at all.

Member

Oh, and i'm SO annoyed by mmorpg's developers reluctance to add player housing, guild towns, in their games, this is a really bad and lazy trend since several years now. It was and remains a key feature of this genre for a lot players, and the expected size of the landmass + presence of big cities + the fact that solo ES (+ the tons of mods dedicated to that) already have houses (and all that comes with it) make this decision clearly disappointing.

Player housing I like. Guild halls I'm not so sure about. The EQ2 guild halls pretty much removed all traffic from the cities and made them empty. Players would move from their guild hall directly to the areas they wanted to get to by getting ported straight there. You didn't even need to find a merchant or banker, they were all in your guild hall. It made the world feel smaller and server communities just became guild communities. You didn't see anyone else other than your guildies.

After TOR I'm very jaded w/ MMO's right now. It's like some producer is just clicking off a checklist of features that "will make this as popular with wow" without actually sitting down and asking: "Is this really really fun?"

Single-handedly caused Exxon-Mobil to sue FOX, start World War 3

It runs horribly if you try to render many players on the screen with any sort of texture sharpness and shadowing. It's also very bland. While I happen to like SWTOR, it's got about as much ambient "environmentals" in the various areas as WoW. Which would be ok if it was 2005. NPCs either just stand in one or two places. Some mobs walk around. But it's not a lively world. It seems like a bad fit for a franchise that's purportedly built around presenting a living world. I know there are often compromises made when presenting that vision even in the single player games, but this is an outright departure from that vision.

It looks like they looked at every single cool thing about the Elder Scrolls series, and instead of incorporating those things into an MMO, decided to make a standard MMO. Unfortunately, it is those very things like owning a house/store and being able to loot PC houses that made this idea so beautiful.

I'd probably be less put-off if they just called it FantasyVille and came up with their own IP rather than try to glom on like this and pull down Elder Scrolls. No wonder Bethesda tried to stop them.

Also, I don't understand why they're trying to shoehorn race-based factions into this. It's sounds like an assinine decision made by a suit who was saying "but Warcraft has factions! It's got to be like Warcraft! Warcraft makes money like a money machine. It's got to look like the money machine!"

Member

The "entitled, vocal minority" is the only way this project will survive. The majority is off playing other, bigger, better MMOs like WoW. The only way this game will stand a chance is to hook in fans of the IP at first and then build from there. World of Warcraft grabbed a lot of people by actually changing up the design of MMOs, because at the time, MMOs were known for being hard, unwieldy, and inaccessible. WoW grabbed the Warcraft fans that the series already had and the jaded MMO fans who wanted something more user-friendly as well as people who still hadn't gotten into MMOs for that reason.

TES Online has to do the same thing, but it seems like they're alienating the TES fans by changing up the gameplay that those fans love, and they aren't grabbing any jaded MMO fans by copying everything else that already exists on the market, nor will they get any new fans to pick up MMOs by being just like everything else out there.

So yes, I would expect them to make a game for what I'm sure you pejoratively refer to as the "entitled, vocal minority." Who do you expect them to make games for? The MMO majority that already have dozens upon dozens of high quality, established games to choose from?

Member

I wonder if this can be seen as part of a larger reaction to traditional AAA publishers. Maybe the blowback from Mass Effect 3 and TOR is just the beginning. Maybe gamers are finally starting to wise up to the fact that big budgets and high production values don't mean anything. Or maybe I'm just reading too much into this.

My source is my ass!

Player housing I like. Guild halls I'm not so sure about. The EQ2 guild halls pretty much removed all traffic from the cities and made them empty. Players would move from their guild hall directly to the areas they wanted to get to by getting ported straight there. You didn't even need to find a merchant or banker, they were all in your guild hall. It made the world feel smaller and server communities just became guild communities. You didn't see anyone else other than your guildies.

Yeah i know the problems that could come with guild halls/cities, but there's a lot of ways to avoid these cases, like having quite a lot of apartments/flats in towns already existing in the game reserved to the active (or other parameters) guilds, some key functions (economy) only available in thes cities, etc.

The "no player housing" is a real pity, maybe by being "vocal", they can change this decision.

Member

I'm thinking this has to be non-canon. The Elder Scrolls has a pretty rich lore told through books and many games over the course of centuries in-game.

It seems hard to work around that lore to make a game with millions of chosen and a constantly changing emperor, especially when such a heavy event like that would just get "lost" in history. I don't buy it.

100 years in the based is two Sheogoraths ago, for example. Will this be addressed? If it happens at the end of an age, will the Grey March be accounted for? (I doubt it).

They basically can't do anything meaningful in the story without tossing away established lore. I'm not sure why they opted for 1000 years in the past, versus 1000 years in the future, when they can just do whatever they want and rewrite all the lore than need to.

Member

Man, if I were on the development team and came into this thread, I'd be feeling pretty crappy at the moment, unless I knew that, contrary to all expectations, what I was working really IS going to turn the MMO world on its head a bit. As is, I doubt it will, and we're lookin' at a bomba situation here...

After TOR I'm very jaded w/ MMO's right now. It's like some producer is just clicking off a checklist of features that "will make this as popular with wow" without actually sitting down and asking: "Is this really really fun?"

Member

We need a sandbox ESO with an intricate crafting system & economy, player houses & towns, a lot of community/social things + of course a huge continent to explore with tons of group quests & dungeons. A way to immerse yourself in the Elder Scrolls universe, live the daily occupations of an adventurer in such setting, with some friends.

Banned

Wow, I don't the developers were expecting this kinda backfire. I kinda feel sorry for them, seeing as they did start development on this game when most people weren't burnt out playing traditional MMOs. But then again, traditional MMOs need to start failing if we are ever going to see some change in this area.

I hope for their sake that this game has something that puts it apart from the competition.

My source is my ass!

Wow, I don't the developers were expecting this kinda backfire. I kinda feel sorry for them, seeing as they did start development on this game when most people weren't burnt out playing traditional MMOs. But then again, traditional MMOs need to start failing if we are ever going to see some change in this area.

I hope for their sake that this game has something that puts it apart from the competition.